The Best CRM Software of 2018

Effectively tracking customers means a lot more than simply maintaining a Rolodex. The tools we've tested here not only keep track of who your customers are but also where they are, what they like, and what they've bought. You can't run a modern sales operation without one.

Bottom Line: A flagship product among more than thirty Zoho software solutions, Zoho CRM provides customer management at a great value with a robust feature set as well as room for both outside integrati...

Bottom Line: Insightly CRM is a solid customer relationship and lead tracking tool, though it's aimed specifically at small and midsized businesses. An intuitive user interface is fleshed out with data g...

Bottom Line: Bpm'online CRM is a polished contender in the CRM space that's aimed primarily at midsized to enterprise organizations. It also does a great job of integrating marketing and customer service...

Bottom Line: Salesforce is not only a pioneer in the CRM space, it's also managed to maintain its leadership position for more than a decade with a constantly expanding feature set, excellent customizati...

Bottom Line: While it's not aimed at larger organizations, Pipedrive CRM does represent a solid solution for small to midsized businesses looking to implement basic CRM capabilities in a no-frills packag...

Bottom Line: Base CRM still has a relatively small list of third-party integrations and a recently-increased price tag, but it's still a solid contender in the small business CRM and lead management spac...

Bottom Line: Apptivo still doesn't sport the long list of third-party integrations we'd like to see, but it retains its Editors' Choice ranking despite this shortcoming due to a solid core feature set an...

Molly K. McLaughlinRob MarvinThe Best CRM Software of 2018Effectively tracking customers means a lot more than simply maintaining a Rolodex. The tools we've tested here not only keep track of who your customers are but also where they are, what they like, and what they've bought. You can't run a modern sales operation without one.

What Is CRM Software?

Effectively managing your customer relationships is something that's highly individual to each business. Not only the kind of business factors in here but also the way it's operated, marketed, and even which salespeople you're employing. It all factors into not only how you'll reach new customers but how you'll retain key information about them for later use. For most small to midsize businesses (SMBs), however, the tool they use to achieve this task is largely the same: the spreadsheet. But even only moderately successful organizations quickly grow beyond spreadsheets when they begin to realize how fundamentally valuable every customer interaction can be and how many ways you can have them. Sales lunches and conference calls aside, you're interacting with customers today in more ways than ever, including multiple new advertising avenues, a host of digital marketing strategies, and an ever-growing list of social media channels to name just a few. Managing these interactions, mining them for broader audience data, and organizing them to work in synergy with the sales pipeline, that's the customer relationship management (CRM) mission.

Not only is CRM software easier to use than a spreadsheet, it's what you'd expect if your contact list decided to evolve a brain. It records your customers' contact information and it remembers the details of your relationship and every interaction—whether by phone or email, and nowadays across other channels such as social media or even your customer helpdesk. That information is a gold mine of opportunity, letting you identify prospects for up- or cross-sell, convert existing customers to new products or services, target new marketing, or even track invoices. Choosing the right CRM software for your business can dramatically improve your team's collaboration and productivity, increase sales, and heighten customer satisfaction.

The best CRM software can deliver those benefits because it organizes and records the institutional knowledge all businesses maintain about their customers. Employees might use a spreadsheet to pass on information about past sales or share email threads that show a customer has been a loyal patron. But such information is often left to casual word of mouth, which means it's often missing when needed or it's entirely forgotten. CRM software keeps this information in one place, efficiently organizes it, and makes it possible to take immediate action with it. Such actions can include sending a loyal customer a gift card on their birthday or offering an up-sell opportunity to a platform from which you know their business can benefit (based on previous conversations). It's also a great way to woo back inactive customers. The key is to select the software that's right for the way your team works. The last thing you want is to see employees fighting new software instead of interacting with the customer.

CRM software isn't just about tracking and maintaining contact information. While most look to CRM software as primarily a sales tool, it's moved beyond that space. Marketing and customer service departments can dramatically improve their offerings and operations with CRM as well by using its data to more effectively segment demographics and record and reuse customer incident information. CRM software also helps coordinate interdepartmental actions. For example, the sales team can take advantage of something a customer service representative discovered in a separate transaction. Depending upon the software you choose, you can set and measure sales goals, deliver and track email marketing campaigns, or keep an eye on what people are saying on social media.

Pricing and Add-ons

Price can be a significant factor when evaluating CRM software, but that analysis should focus on more than just the upfront costs. Most of the CRM software we looked at offers per-user pricing but it's important to check what's included in that price and which features you actually need.

Training can eat up a chunk of the budget as can upgrades and ongoing support. Consider how much it would cost to integrate the software with existing systems and whether or not you would need additional equipment. That mobile implementation looks slick on the vendor's website but will it still look that slick once you've designed the customized CRM forms your business will use every day? Does it mean the sales or customer service teams need new smartphones or maybe even tablets? These costs can quickly add up.

Taking the time investment into consideration is why trying out more than one program is key. This way, you can choose the software that will be most efficient for your company. If you have the resources to train and onboard staff and customize the software yourself, then eventually it will start to work for you. But smaller teams can't afford to invest in software that asks a lot upfront; you need something that will be up and running in a day in most cases. Read the support documentation and you'll get an idea of setup complexity and any issues you might bump into with the software you already have. Use the free evaluation period to try out important features: import data, add information manually, connect accounts, and assign tasks to other users. Take note of how helpful the software is and whether or not it creates more work. Keep track of how often you have to consult the Help system in order to complete a basic task.

As CRM software has grown more sophisticated, it has branched out into many different directions. There are plenty of options for implementing your CRM in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model or for deploying it on-premises by using your own server. Cloud-based CRM is rapidly growing in popularity because it means you can quickly get up to speed and don't have to worry about managing software on your own servers, which adds complexity and cost. You can look for the software that has deep hooks into social media management and analytics platforms so you can record customer interactions on Facebook or Twitter. Plus, you should definitely consider CRM software that integrates with your business phone system so you can capture call and conversation information. Look closely at your business processes, discuss with employees what they need and want, and contrast that with your bottom line. By doing so, you'll quickly have an accurate picture of the right CRM software for you.

It's tempting to forgo this homework and simply pay for one of the big, all-inclusive CRM software packages just to have access to every feature you might need now or in the future. But that approach will almost certainly wind up costing you more in both time and money, while probably delivering less flexibility than you'd expect. That's because these large CRM software packages are often platforms rather than tools. This means that those myriad features they advertise are really the product of integrating with a host of third-party solution providers, not options you can simply turn on. Third-party integration means not only added licensing dollars but also new integration costs.

A better approach is to understand how your employees have to use the software as well as how they want to use it. Think about what tools your team is currently using and what processes they follow. Figure out how those tasks map to the CRM software you're evaluating. Consider what some of the most common tasks are. For example, if the users have to dig through menus and submenus every single time they want to log a call or email, then the tool will actually complicate their jobs instead of simplify them. Form a small group of users who understand these day-to-day issues to help you in your evaluation; frontline salespeople and managers as well as IT managers are a good start. You don't want to impose a tool that actually makes key tasks more difficult or complex just so you can pay a premium for features those same employees may never touch. More and more CRM tools are also combining the email and sales experience into a single smart inbox or centralized dashboard view to manage all or most daily communications and tasks, without leaving the CRM tool.

As with any piece of software, it's essential to take advantage of free trials when available. No matter how many reviews you read or demos you watch, you can't get a real sense of how the CRM software works until you use it yourself. Be sure to have colleagues from different departments try out the software, too, so you can understand how successful it is in different situations and business processes. This way, you can eliminate programs with too many or too few features as well as understand how much training will be necessary.

Most of these companies offer at least a 14-day trial (and we consider that fairly short as 30 days is better) and some, including Apptivo CRM, Insightly CRM, and Zoho CRM offer free plans, albeit with limited features or users. These can either serve as a full-time solution for small companies or as a long-term trial for larger companies. Apptivo CRM, Insightly CRM, and Zoho CRM also offer free trials as do Base CRM, PipeDrive CRM, and Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional.

Ease of Use and Support

CRM software must be intuitive or you'll never want to use it. Make a note of how many clicks it takes to conduct a basic task and how easy or difficult it is to find the features you need. Beyond being easy to use, CRM software should be able to manage user error. For example, if you try to conduct a task on the wrong screen or input the wrong data, then the best software will identify your error and suggest the right way to do it. On the other hand, poorly designed software will either let you make the error unchecked or will throw up an unhelpful error message.

One way to figure out if CRM software is really easy to use is by training others on how to use it. If you get stuck while training someone else, then that's worth noting. Think about the time it will take to get your team up to speed and whether or not it's worth that investment.

Finally, when you run into problems, whether it's a software bug or a problem using a feature, you'll need a responsive support team. Verify what type of support is included with your subscription and the hours of availability. If available, read through the support documentation, FAQs, and other self-service Help (options include blog entries, public knowledge bases, and even online training videos). If there aren't any self-service options, then consider that you'll have to contact support whenever you get stuck. That said, you should contact support while you're trying out software and make a note of the response time. Ask a lot of questions; this will also help you familiarize yourself with the product. CRM software is complicated but support shouldn't be.

And watch out for gaps in the support plan. Many of these solutions, especially the SaaS entries, have tiered, subscription-based pricing. That often means different levels of support depending on the subscription you choose. If your business process requires access to the CRM on weekends, for example, then make sure you've got access to support during those hours.

Email, Mobile, and Social Features

Don't get distracted by CRM capabilities you won't use. Make sure the software you ultimately select captures the information that's essential for your business, allows effective follow-up, and is easy enough to use that your team will work with it, not around it.

Remember that new technologies, while slick, aren't automatically pervasive. For example, social media is a game-changing technology for interacting with customers. But as much as social and collaboration applications such as Slack are catching on, that doesn't mean email is dead. Most customers still expect to interact with you via email, and an email can still capture much more data than a Facebook post or a tweet can. Understand how your company interacts with customers over email and make sure your CRM software acts as a complement to that relationship, not as a hindrance. CRM software should automatically capture data from email interactions, not force your employees to manually enter email data. Similarly, integrating your CRM software into your email platform means that entering the customer's name or ID in one platform automatically brings up data from the other.

Take the time to also properly evaluate the mobile app; this should be considered a separate app, not just as a mobile "capability," and you also shouldn't be asked to pay anything extra for it. Mobile devices are an entirely different breed from desktops or notebooks. Employees use them differently and software renders them differently, which means that business processes that involve them will behave differently. Make sure your CRM software of choice can support the mobile device platform your team uses and carefully evaluate what the app can do. Some apps offer a read-only view of your sales pipeline or contacts so that you can look up the relevant information while out and about. Those apps won't let you make updates until you get back to a computer. Others offer a seamless and responsive experience, letting you do everything you would do on a mobile device that you would on a computer (but usually presenting tools and features differently, which can be difficult for some users to get used to). Don't commit to CRM software until you've actually used the mobile app in a way you and your team would on a day-to-day basis.

Companies, including Sugar CRM and Zoho, cater to the mobile workforce, with full-featured, responsive apps, and mobile layouts. If you have a field sales team that leaves their laptops behinds and instead works on their tablets and smartphones, then you need to give them the tools they need.

Marketing Automation

The ability to act as a lynchpin for a well-planned marketing automation strategy is one of the most valuable aspect of CRM software and it's a shame that not all software packages offer it—though most are beginning to get there. Marketing automation is a popular term these days and it refers to the software's ability to remind sales and marketing representatives to follow up with customers at the right time. Automation reminds you—or, in some cases, actually handles the task for you—of needed activities such as following up 30 days after a sales purchase with a coupon or calling the sales prospect 14 days after the individual signed up for a trial of the software. It can also extend to other software, such as kicking off an email marketing promotion based on criteria that are reached during a phone call with the customer, even if that call was initiated with the CRM system.

This also extends to lead management, which is a core capability of all CRM platforms. Lead management tracks and manages prospective customers (often called leads or "opportunities") across lead generation and acquisition and throughout the sales pipeline. Lead management can be executed in more of a hands-on manner through tracking progression in a sales pipeline dashboard or reports. Some CRM software providers use a greater degree of marketing automation to trigger actions and sales stages based on lead progression. Lead management is a part of all CRM platforms but how the provider handles it can make a big difference.

Some CRM platforms have email marketing built in while others can connect with a third-party service, such as Campaigner or MailChimp. Automation can also play a part in email marketing, where an action by a prospect, lead, or customer, triggers an email or email campaign. For example, if a user signs up for a webinar on your website, then that can trigger a series of emails about what to do next. Likewise, if a user cancels their account, then that action can trigger an off-boarding campaign that prompts them to save their data or it can trigger an incentive campaign offering discounts or other perks if they decide not to cancel after all. Automation can also mean changing the status of a customer or prospect based on an action on their part.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are also starting to show up in CRM software. Bpm'online uses automation and predictive technology to remind users to complete tasks and guide them what to do next. Salesforce launched its Einstein AI-based business intelligence (BI) platform, which can also provide automation across email management, lead and opportunity scoring, and forecasting. These technologies have a huge potential to save time and to help sales teams perform even better.

Third-Party Integrations

It's important, as we've noted, to determine which features are included with your subscription and which require a third-party add-on. However, it's also worth looking at the software you already use to see if it's compatible with the CRM software you're considering. Maybe you already have email marketing software that you love or you want to connect your cloud storage service, lead management tool, or customer service management platform. As we've mentioned, you'll definitely want to be able to connect your email account and perhaps your calendar, too.

Integration today takes two basic forms. The easiest is if the CRM system or the system to which you're trying to connect supports the other as a "native" integration. That simply means that the company in question has a prebuilt integration module you can simply select, download, and implement as needed. You'll have the best luck with big-name targets here as many companies pre-build integrations for companies such as Netsuite or Salesforce, for example. The other method is that, if both system support an open application programming interface (API), usually one based on Representational State Transfer (REST). With an API, you can have your in-house IT staff (provided they can do some coding) or an out-of-house contract programmer build a custom integration for you. That option certainly provides the most flexibility and customization but it can also add significant cost depending on the level of your coding talent.

Reporting and Analytics

Once you've been using CRM software to manage your leads and deals, you can see how successful you've been and where you're falling short. Look for CRM software with reporting features that can be customized so that you can see how employees are performing and which types of customers are responding. Look for a tool that lets you export reports if you need to present high-level data to company stakeholders.

Next, take that API or native integration and plug it into whatever business intelligence (BI) tool your organization likes best. That's because BI can turn that humdrum CSV or PDF file reporting data into live data visualizations and dashboards. These can keep you, your sales team, and anyone else with access to the CRM data completely current on sales statistics, demographic information, product popularity, and any number of other metrics. Additionally, only today's BI tools let you combine data from multiple sources—such as your CRM database on one side of the business and your warehouse and supply chain on the other—and ask complex queries that take multiple data sources into account to provide new insights that any one data source simply couldn't.

Don't Forget Security

Invest in security. There's no simple way to put it. When you're working with the sales pipeline and customer data, make sure security is top of mind—especially if you're using a SaaS-deployed CRM solution (which means not only the app but likely also a big chunk, if not all, of your customer data resides in the cloud). You should feel comfortable with the company's security requirements. It is a warning sign if your CRM software lets you select a password but doesn't generate an audit trail whenever someone makes a change, or if it doesn't let you define the access controls for each user. Customer data is an extremely valuable commodity especially now that customers are more reluctant to part with it. Securing it isn't just about maintaining privacy; it's about protecting profitable relationships that directly impact your bottom line.

Integration plays a role here but it's mostly about research. From an integration standpoint, you can make sure your chosen CRM software can integrate with as much of your current IT security software as possible, such as your identity management system, for example, so your employees can take advantage of single sign-on authentication. But even more important than that is doing your homework. That means digging deep into the vendor's service level agreement (SLA) and ascertaining exactly where your data resides, who is responsible for its safety, and what happens if there's a problem. Doing some Google surfing to see whether this vendor has been breached in the past and what their response was is another good indicator of just what you're getting your data into.

Putting Top CRMs to the Test

In this roundup, we tested some of the most popular CRM software packages on the market today. The packages include Apptivo CRM, Base CRM, Bpm'online CRM, Freshsales CRM, HubSpot CRM, Insightly CRM, Less Annoying CRM, Pipedrive CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM. We've worked hard to evaluate this CRM software with the aforementioned criteria in mind, so check out each of the reviews below to figure out which package is right for you. All have their strengths and weaknesses—some are geared more toward small to midsize businesses (SMBs) while others have broader email marketing capabilities. Some CRM systems are easier to use out of the box, with simple navigations and standard workflows, while others offer deeper and more complicated degrees of customization. Some are dirt cheap while others can be quite expensive when you start moving up tiers, scaling up your sales workforce, or adding premium functionality.

Our three favorites are Apptivo CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM, each of which earns an Editors' Choice designation. However, depending on your business needs, the size and scope of your sales team, and the means by which your organization aims to engage and grow its lead and customer base, any one of these CRM platforms might have the right combination of price and features to work for you.

Cons: Workflow automation only available to those with the Professional edition.

Bottom Line: A flagship product among more than thirty Zoho software solutions, Zoho CRM provides customer management at a great value with a robust feature set as well as room for both outside integration and internal versatility.

Cons: Lead assignment rules only available to Professional and Enterprise plans. No automatic email forwarding. Lead and contact information split into separate tabs. Pipelines not available for leads.

Bottom Line: Insightly CRM is a solid customer relationship and lead tracking tool, though it's aimed specifically at small and midsized businesses. An intuitive user interface is fleshed out with data gathering and even project management tools.

Cons: Relatively short trial period. Initial experience can be overwhelming. Forms require some coding skills. Doesn't directly work with social networks.

Bottom Line: Bpm'online CRM is a polished contender in the CRM space that's aimed primarily at midsized to enterprise organizations. It also does a great job of integrating marketing and customer service into the CRM process.

Bottom Line: Salesforce is not only a pioneer in the CRM space, it's also managed to maintain its leadership position for more than a decade with a constantly expanding feature set, excellent customization, and a large third-party, value-add partner ecosystem.

Cons: Limited functionality for the price. No separation between lists of new leads and contacts.

Bottom Line: While it's not aimed at larger organizations, Pipedrive CRM does represent a solid solution for small to midsized businesses looking to implement basic CRM capabilities in a no-frills package.

Bottom Line: Base CRM still has a relatively small list of third-party integrations and a recently-increased price tag, but it's still a solid contender in the small business CRM and lead management space.

Bottom Line: Apptivo still doesn't sport the long list of third-party integrations we'd like to see, but it retains its Editors' Choice ranking despite this shortcoming due to a solid core feature set and excellent customization.

About the Author

Molly K. McLaughlin is a New York-based writer and editor with more than a decade of experience covering technology. She has tested and reviewed all sorts of software, mobile apps, and gadgets. Before launching her freelance business, she was an editor at PC Magazine, covering consumer electronics, followed by a stint at ConsumerSearch.com, a revie... See Full Bio

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